The present invention relates to alarm systems, and, more particularly, alarm systems that communicate with a monitoring service.
Home security is generally considered a rapidly growing field. Most conventional alarm systems have a similar architecture that includes a central control box, which monitors several motion detectors and/or perimeter guards and sounds an alarm if any of these detectors/guards are triggered. When a detector/guard is triggered, the control box may perform several operations, such as activate a siren or other loud alarm noise, flash outdoor/indoor lights, and/or initiate a call via a telephone auto-dialer. The sirens and lights may serve various functions, such as alerting occupants and neighbors that someone has broken into the house, scaring the intruder so as to drive the intruder away, and/or signal the police which house has been broken into. The telephone auto-dialer may dial the police directly and play a pre-recorded message giving the address of the house and any other relevant information. This message will usually play over and over so that the police will hear it even if the call is put on hold for some time. The auto-dialer may also dial the security company that installed the equipment, for example. In this case, the control box can provide specific information about the intrusion, such as which circuits or motion detectors were activated, etc. The security company may relay this information to the police.
Unfortunately, if an intruder has cut or otherwise damaged the telephone line for the property, then the auto-dialer may not be able to successfully contact the police and/or monitoring service.